The Fear Of Falling Asleep

When I was a teenage, I used to be asleep by 10pm. I was an early bird, usually a 7/8am wake up call for either school or a sporting event, and I used to think nothing of it. Many of my friends and classmates would do all nighters, stay up late and roll out of bed at midday like it was nothing. My brother was the same, 5am bedtime and 2pm wakeup times. When I was 16 I started working at 7am on Saturdays, football early on a Sunday. The morning was what I knew. Sleeping a minimum of 8 hours straight through the day, waking up feeling refreshed. I have always, and will always be a person who needs sleep to physically function. I will shut down if I am too tired and am able to sleep, or I will go into overdrive when I am tired and unable to get to sleep. I am not one of those people who can function everyday off 4 hours sleep, even though sometimes I wish I was.

When my anxiety started getting worse and I started my degree, my relationship with sleep changed. Suddenly I was more often than not having to stay out til 2am, doing all nighters, having to function for a 9am lecture after a late night out and more often than not, if I was in bed early I was being kept up by anxiety. Whether it was uni or mental health related, my brain was always working, and I was sleeping less and less. Soon after all this, I started working night shifts at work. They were fine. I would struggle a bit to stay awake night one, but would be fine to sleep during the day and figure itself out. When I did them seasonally at uni, it wasn't for long so it wasn't as hard to do. The money was good, and I was able to eventually change my sleeping pattern back to a day one because I had to. My mental health did struggle though slightly, the constant changing of my sleep schedule, not being able to speak to my friends as much, getting used to the "normal" times for me to be awake. 

Through uni, especially my second year, I had a complicated relationship with sleep. Often I didn't sleep. I would on many occasions go to an early football session on a Monday having not slept a wink, then go home after and miss my day of statistics and just rest instead. A few times I went to the library at 3am because I couldn't sleep and I was bored. One day I did so, went to my day of lectures and after being awake for 30 hours I went to sleep. I had never been the person to struggle with sleep, I thought people not sleeping or not sleeping long was just weird and something from choice. I never knew how tough it could be. I mentioned it to a counsellor at uni, who gave me things to try but none of it ever worked. I used to go drinking because I knew it would help me sleep that night. My mental health was at an all time low that year, and as I started to finish the term, I started to feel better and my sleeping slightly improved. 

That was until I started back to my job part time during my master degree. I worked 2 nights a week, leaving the week to do my uni work whilst giving myself enough money to live and not have to worry about money. At first it was fine. My uni workload wasn't huge, I was only in two days a week and I slowly got used to the routine. It quickly however, took a toll on me mentally. I would finish work 7am on Sunday, 24 hours later having to be leaving the house to go to uni. I was having to force myself to not sleep or sleep little so I would be able to function for uni. I missed many days because I didn't sleep or couldn't sleep on Sunday night. The quick change of night to day didn't help any of this, my body was just confused all the time and functioning became near impossible. I was tired constantly, no matter what I did I was tired. Naps turned into 5 hour sleeps, I often would sleep 13 hours because my body didn't know what else to do. My already struggling mental health manifested in anxiety, anxiety and anxiety with anything related to sleep.

I quickly developed almost a fear of sleep. I would have anxiety attacks in my sleep, wake up in fits of crying and never want to sleep again. I had to sleep to function, especially with work, but I was scared to sleep. I would lie in bed okay, close my eyes to try and sleep and have to open my eyes again because simply closing my eyes was too anxious. For many years, I have woken up multiple times in my sleep but because I was so scared to sleep, when I wake up in the middle of the night getting back to sleep was a slow and painful process that made me extra tired when I woke up. Not only was I tired all the time, but I was afraid of the thing that was supposed to stop you from being tired. 

Now I have finished my degree, it is almost in a way harder. I have no reason to not sleep, to not sleep as long as I want. I can't remember the last time I spent an entire week awake during the day time and every time I have tried I have slept 15 hours a day after and ruined any chance I had at a normal life. I have cancelled or bailed on so many plans because I am too tired to try and wake myself up for them. I rarely see or talk to anyone anymore, because I simply am not awake to do so. The pandemic just made this harder, me more likely to sleep more often. I oversleep when I am anxious, but sleeping makes me anxious and that anxiety makes me have to sleep more. I have found myself stuck in a cycle that I don't know how to get out of.

Somehow, I have become the person I never thought I could ever. Not only that, but I have developed an almost crippling fear of the one thing that my body requires to function. I have always had nightmares, but when you combine that with a fear of sleeping anyway, they just get worse every time. I think there have been more days than not this year that I haven't woken up feeling anxious. And it's fucking exhausting. When you wonder when you will next sleep, how well and how long for. When people say you're lucky you slept 7 hours, not knowing you are exhausted, woke up 10 times during that sleep and was drained by fear. When you become a sort of insomnia meme, a running joke about the times you wake up and go to bed or the joke that you never sleep. And I don't know how this gets better. How do you improve a genuine fear to fall asleep? I now can't even fall asleep without listening to music, because music to start with at least distracts my mind long enough to fall asleep. How do you suddenly start being able to fall asleep without wishing you never had to sleep again? How do you stop being genuinely, sometimes cripplingly afraid of falling asleep? How can you focus on the rest of you when the part of existing that helps everything function isn't even working? 

Every time I go to sleep, all I want is a decent nights sleep. I long for the feeling of waking up and feeling even slightly refreshed, feeling calm, feeling like I used to when I was younger. The feeling that something so simple isn't going to completely make or break your day. Just the ability to normally sleep. 

Vulnerability

**TW's: Talk of suicide (+ a mention of an attempted overdose), self harm, ED's, anxiety, depressive episodes, insomnia, a toxic friendship. A mention (but little to no detail of): assault, alcohol abuse.**

Preface: I mention a lot detail about my mental health journey, which whilst somewhat better now, did not used to be and is not always the case. Throughout this I reference things such as self harm, suicide, a bad relationship with food, depressive episodes, anxiety, a mention of assault and alcohol abuse, intrusive thoughts and insomnia. This may not be the easiest thing to read. If you even think you may be affected, please do not read ahead. Please look after yourself, you are more important than any of my thoughts. I am okay, you need to be too. 

***

When I first started this blog at the start of 2016, I was a completely different person to the one writing this right now, whilst being almost the same. The person back then was in a terrible mental state, who had just surpassed her 18th birthday, even though she never expected to make it that far. 2016 Emily was just completely lost, going day to day pretending everything was fine when every day she didn't want to be alive. She had gotten used to masking everything, the suicidal thoughts, the self harm, all the anxiety, all the sadness. But this was an Emily who didn't want to outright talk about her personal experiences. She wanted to talk about mental health but she didn't want to make it her own, instead everything was written generically, factually and any hint of it being about myself was hidden.

In 2016 I wanted to help people. I started this blog because I wanted to help people. I wanted people to understand what I was understanding and living with, because it was never something I knew growing up. I was suicidal at 11, but I didn't understand what suicide even meant until I found it out by myself when I was 14/15, even though I had experienced it most days since then. I didn't know anything about mental health, I thought that everyone felt the ways I did and that it was normal. Social media conditioned me to thing that these things were things that everyone experienced and that I spent a few years thinking that everyone self harmed, everyone wanted to die and everyone starved themselves because they wanted to be thin. Tumblr made me believe that things like self harm genuinely would be helpful (spoilers: it is not). But I learnt that mental health problems were that, problems, and it almost sent me spiralling. I had spent years feeling these things but thinking it was normal, so to learn that these are things that people to and see doctors for was something I mentally couldn't handle. If I had known this years before maybe then I would have told someone and maybe it wouldn't have gotten so bad. So to try and combat those feelings, I started this. I wanted people to know what mental health and related concepts were and where they could go if they needed it. 

Eventually I strayed from the 'educational format' I had planned and started talking about myself. It became less about helping people and more about helping myself. There was already 1000's of places for other people, but I had nothing for myself. It was the outlet I needed when I needed it most, and that's what I moulded it to be. But even if one person could relate to anything I was saying, I knew somewhere it still had the purpose I wanted. I wanted to help people, I've always only ever wanted to help people.

Whilst I wrote many of these blogs at some of the lowest points in my life, in truth so many of these have redacted information, or I wrote completely downplaying how I was doing/feeling. Sometimes it was just too hard to write down, to admit to myself. There are some things that I wrote, published and deleted because I was too scared that people I knew would see it and change their opinions of me. I never wanted my friends to see this and be worried about me, or think of me as any less than I already was. But there were times that I was struggling more than I could put into words and I didn't want help, just a place to write them down. And beyond that there are things that have hugely affected my mental health and my recovery that I just simply will never go truly into detail about: the night at uni I tried to overdose when I was drunk, my assault, the time I didn't eat for 2 weeks and the few month period where I was drunk nearly every day to try and feel something other than sadness just to name a few. The things that I have simply never told anyone about. But, I want to be more open, truly more open, or at least try to be.

I have always valued vulnerability. The ability to be, and allow others to be vulnerable is one of the hardest yet most important parts of being alive. By allowing yourself to be vulnerable, you are allowing others to hear you, to understand what you are going through and allow others to help. But not only that, by being vulnerable you are showing others who may have gone through similar that they are not alone and as a result, other people may be more willing to open up to someone too. 

Being vulnerable is something I have had to learn how to do in the last few years. I first struggled with my mental health when I was 11, but when I was 13 I tried to talk to a friend about it. That friend shut me down immediately, told me I was faking it all, told me I should just kill myself to prove it, told me I was a horrible person who was just wanted attention. From then my walls went up, I told no one about anything. None of the many many relapses, I would pretend I had sprained my wrist so I could wear a brace to hide any cuts, or that I was cold in 30 degree heat so no one saw the scars, I would lie about when I ate lunch at school or dinner at home so I simply didn't have to. I pretended from then on that my life was in two separate parts, the happy presenting part that everyone saw and the suicidal part that only I (and my twitter) knew about. I was so traumatised from that one person that I didn't reach out to anyone I knew until I was 18 about my mental health. When I was 18 in the space of 3 months I had 3 of the worst the worst things that have ever happened to me, happen and I realised I couldn't do it alone anymore. That sometimes I just needed someone to hear me and tell me that I would be okay. It was harder to do, but slowly, one person at a time I learnt how to do it. 

So here I am now. 4 years later I am where I am now. I am not perfect in being vulnerable and open, but I am better than I have been. I found a way to express how I am feeling in a way that I feel reflects myself better. And now, I want to be open and vulnerable again. 

I have just come out of one of the worst depressive episodes of my life. I didn't want to talk to anyone, I didn't want anyone to worry about me because I didn't have the energy to. Every second I felt like I was about to break down. Everyday I was sleeping 13+ hours, and any hour I was awake I spent in bed super anxious and scared to even turn on the light. I was having constant intrusive thoughts, not limited to thinking everyone I knew and loved absolutely despised me and that meant that I couldn't even check my phone without feeling like I was absolutely alone and unloved. For 2 weeks I spent half of my nights just not wanting to be alive, just not wanting to exist anymore. And whilst I feel significantly better now, ever since the idea that I may never get better has just always been in the back of my mind. Just yesterday, I had a really bad panic attack that I am still trying to feel better from now. But I am happier to be open about this. I know that it will help myself to not bottle up my feelings and experiences, and maybe it will help one person.

I am better than I ever have been. I can function now. I have less days where it feels like the world is ending than I have better days where everything is okay. I am nearly 9 months free from self harm after 11 years, and I have not felt the urge to as frequently. I no longer have serious suicidal thoughts, and I can't remember when I last even considered it let alone tried. Whilst my anxiety may still be heavily affecting my life, I am doing things to try and combat it. I reregistered to my doctors office, and am probably in the next few months going to make an appointment to talk to a doctor about it. I am open and comfortable with my sexuality and gender identity and I have surrounded myself with people who I love. I am making sure I put myself before anyone else, and not giving my time to anyone who thinks badly of that. I finished my damn masters degree through a global pandemic, when I nearly quit a few months before it's completion due to a really bad burnout. Hell, I spoke to someone about something that has been on my mind for years that I have never told anyone about. I make sure I eat when I am hungry, no matter how hard I sometimes want to not. There is no way I can deny that I am not doing better, and I am proud of myself for how far I've come and how far I will continue to go. 

I made this blog 4 and a half years ago to help people. I have learnt how important speaking about my experiences is in that. I will continue to be vulnerable.

When you are not okay, please talk to someone. Please be vulnerable. It is okay to be.